Alex Oagana
3,341 ARTICLES
Personal motto:
Suck, squeeze, bang, blow. (no pun intended)
His parents almost called the police the day after he got his driving license, suspecting their car had been stolen. Little did they know that Alex had went for a 24 hour joy ride with his friends and had forgotten to announce his parents that he was going to “borrow” the family car for the trip.
In case it's not obvious enough by now, he lives and breathes cars. He considers himself an oldschool petrolhead who is well aware that the automotive industry is a polluting business but he's also sick at heart knowing that someday we're all going to drive kitchen appliances with digitized V8 sounds.
Following some time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea. Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project, which he believes is changing the face of online automotive coverage.
During various periods of sabbaticals from autoevolution he also got a few writing and/or editing gigs at websites like Carscoops, Top Speed, and also did some freelancing work, but his first online passion kept calling him back at the car site he helped launch back in 2008.
The Sports Car Paradox
3 Jun 2011, 16:11 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / One of the main quarrels with the majority of sports cars out there – apart from the penis size jokes and the protests about killing the planet with anything that has more than 150 horsepower – is obviously the fact that they are expens...
How to Get Rid of Vehicle Rust
2 Jun 2011, 17:11 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / Unless you're the somewhat lucky owner of an aluminium-bodied car and despite the evolution of modern anti-corrosion techniques by vehicle manufacturers, rust is still one of the sworn archenemies of cars everywhere. Sure, some rat-rod owners ...
Cheetah, the Ill-fated Cobra Killer
26 May 2011, 16:48 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / The SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) production class championship races were stormed in 1962 by the introduction of the now fabled Cobra. Originally called the AC Cobra and then the Shelby Cobra, as many of you know the car was technically a marr...
The Fate of Sports Cars
20 May 2011, 06:55 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / Up until a few days ago, when it came to the future of sports cars - and the future of cars altogether - I was probably one of the most pessimistic persons in the world. I had this idea in my head that real car enthusiasts are a dying breed and tha...
Mercedes Renntransporter - The Fastest Racing Car Hauler in the World
19 May 2011, 05:11 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / As far as 1930s European motorsport goes, the Grand Prix scene was pretty much "owned" by Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union, as most wins were split between the two German giants. Overall success belongs to the tri-star manufacturer though, an...
How to Avoid City Traffic Jams Like a Boss
16 May 2011, 13:55 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / Whether you're a true car enthusiast, or you simply drive because it's part of your job or it's just the best way to reach point B from point A, traffic jams are most likely in the top three of things you consider "the bane of y...
BMW 328 Turns 80 - The Little Roadster That Could
12 May 2011, 12:08 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / Although the series production for the road going version commenced about a year later, the BMW 328 - the Bavarians' first ever true sports car - appeared for the first time in public in the summer of 1936, exactly years ago. Little did its ma...
A Guide to Aftermarket Rearview Cameras
11 May 2011, 06:22 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / If you've been driving way before the era of parking sensors, rearview cameras or even automated self-parking, you're probably going to neglect most, if not all of the information we will give you in this guide. If that is the case, and o...
Wet Nellie: The Second Most Famous Bond Car
9 May 2011, 15:23 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / Although the gadget-filled Aston Martin DB5, indisputably the most famous film car of all time, was used in no less than five movies from the James Bond franchise, another Bond vehicle takes the cake as the most impressive "transformer" c...
Nissan GT-R's Secret - ATTESA E-TS AWD System Explained
5 May 2011, 16:13 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / The Nissan GT-R is the oddest vehicle in the supercar kingdom. Just looking at its specs on paper you wouldn't believe this car is as fast as Nissan (and other independent verifiers) are saying. There is simply no way for it to be that much fa...
Lancia Stratos - The First Ever Purpose-Built Rally Car
4 May 2011, 16:26 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / The 1970s were a period known predominantly for the wacky disco movement, the 1973 global oil crisis, the Watergate scandal, cars with shag carpeting (not the Austin Powers kind), lava lamps, Star Wars and last but not least, a predilection for rol...
For Us, By Us
3 May 2011, 15:45 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / Unless your name is either Abe Vigoda or Betty White, there's scarcity of reasons for why you should remember the fact that chicken was considered a luxury delicacy before World War II. But, thanks to the establishment of intensive chicken fa...
Coachbuilding - A Long Lost Art
24 Oct 2010, 04:03 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / As many of you know, in the first half of the twentieth century, car manufacturing used to be a little bit different than it is today. Apart from car makers who were already perfecting series car production, like Ford or Fiat, most of the big dogs ...
Mercedes-Benz T80 – The Record Car That Never Was
23 Oct 2010, 16:16 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / In the decade just before World War II broke out, two German car manufacturers were having their own private wars against each other. We're talking about Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union, which, in part thanks to a load of cash and a couple of dir...
Lane Keeping Assist Systems Explained
20 Oct 2010, 20:16 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / From a no-holds-barred, the-future-is-here, techie point of view, any technological advancement is a necessary thing. Especially if the said advancement was designed primordially to save lives. This probably goes in every domain out there, but sinc...
Chevrolet Volt – Jack of all Trades, Master of None?...
19 Oct 2010, 12:05 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / ...As I'm sure most of you are already aware, this past week has been hellish for GM's PR managers, and I'm not using my strongest words for the situation. First, they had to take care of the General's most expected car launch i...
Exclusive Interview with BMW Designer Nader Faghihzadeh
19 Oct 2010, 07:54 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / Love him or hate him – most probably hate him – Chris Bangle has installed a new era of design at BMW. His legacy lives on even after his departure from the company last year. It can obviously be found in the actual cars whose design he...
How Anti-Lag Systems Work
11 Oct 2010, 19:01 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / We're sure many of you have heard or at least wondered about the loud but somehow strangely arousing bang-bang sound some rally cars make usually upon nearing a corner at decreasing speed. Before we get into the details, we should probably say...
Volkswagen Group's Matryoshkas...
10 Oct 2010, 15:33 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / ...Matryoshkas are Russian dolls, usually made out of wood. Alas, that's not the interesting part about them. They all come in sets - usually five or more – and the curious bit is the fact that almost each one can be separated in a Jack-...
Exclusive Interview with BMW X3 (F25) Designer Erik Goplen
9 Oct 2010, 17:26 UTC · By: Alex Oagana / During our 2010 Paris Auto Show visit we had the chance to have an exclusive interview with BMW's Erik Goplen, the man behind the exterior design of the F25 X3 and the much-acclaimed E46 3-Series. What first started as a regular auto show inte...